BOALSBURG - Ask Duffy's Tavern general manager Chuck Hacker if the 190-year-old building that houses the restaurant is a draw for people - from the antique tools and decorations to the original stone and brick work and the beautiful wooden floors - and you'll get a pretty definitive answer.
"Absolutely," he says. "You can't duplicate this. Like the floor - I have people come in to look at this floor. We haven't replaced it because we have guests come through and say 'Look at these old floors.'
"It needs replaced - I've got plugs in, I've run corks, I've got gaps where the joints are coming apart. Every day, we come in and buff it and shine it. (But) If I replaced it, the first thing people would do would be to complain."
According to Hacker, Duffy's Tavern was built in 1819 in the then-young town of Boalsburg as a stagecoach stop, the only one of the three in town that served the gentry. It operated as a tavern until the early 1930s, when it was partially destroyed by fire. Rebuilt by a new owner, the tavern was bought not long after by Harry and Mary Duffy.
The Duffys ran the business until Carl and Joanne Hacker bought it from them in 1971. Their son, Chuck, now 50, took over day-to-day operations about 20 years ago. Carl, now 78, is still a hands-on owner, coming in to the restaurant for several hours each day.
Chuck Hacker says the restaurant takes constant upkeep, and sometimes simple work can be made complex by the building's age. For example, putting in digital dining stations required Hacker to hide the wires in nooks and crannies throughout the restaurant, and a plumbing project required him to dig a trench under the floorboards since the building has no basement.
"Between the rooms and all the paint - we paint every two years - there's a lot (to do)," he says. "There's always something that needs fixed with the building.
"Actually, the structure is fine. It's just old - it needs care."
Duffy's is split up into several "rooms," thanks to the building's previous life as a residence. Different rooms, including the formal dining room, the main kitchen and auxiliary kitchen, are different themed areas of the restaurant.
The "tavern" section of the restaurant consists of several casual dining rooms with wooden tables, including a converted porch area and a back room with a loft to accommodate 10 diners. The second floor features a large banquet room.
The front room appears to have been the house's original dining room. Now dubbed "The Fruit Room" by Hacker, due to the fruit bowls on the wallpaper, offers a more upscale experience.
"Some people don't like hearing 'formal dining,'" Hacker says. "They think you're getting into a five-star type of service. It's just that we give a nicer surrounding for dining for special occasions - tablecloths are on the tables and the servers are in tuxedos.
"I serve the same menu items here as I do in the tavern, I just dress up my table to make a nicer ambience for the groups coming in."
The more formal service, however, isn't something new. In fact, it used to be the standard before casual dining became the industry norm.
"All of (the main dining areas) used to be linen dining - that was 25 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago," Hacker explains. "Recently, the change in dining has, I think, taken a turn for the worse. But whatever the public wants, I'm happy to give."
"The public" has embraced Duffy's throughout its history, and Boalsburg residents continue to frequent the restaurant. A popular stop for patrons - day or night - is the bar area, which the Hackers have expanded to accomodate more than 20 from just six seats when they purchased the building.
"The nice thing about the bar is that there aren't many of (the local bars) left," Hacker says. "I'm a local tavern, not a student bar. This is a true 'Cheers' - everyone knows your name, they know what you do. The atmosphere is fantastic and they really enjoy it. You see the same people here every day."
And those people come for the company as much as the drinks. Daytime bartender Jo Knight has been a fixture at Duffy's for 13 years, and the bar patrons have become more than just customers.
"It's different than bartending in one of the bigger places," Knight says. "It's the people. I love the people. They're really good to one another - you're only a stranger in here once. It's the epitome of Boalsburg the town."
One of a number of longtime employees at the restaurant, Knight drove from her home in Tyrone to work each day for her first nine years at Duffy's. After moving to Boalsburg four years ago, she discovered just how close she had become to the tavern regulars.
"I had my kitchen redone," she says. "These regulars lent their help. My labor cost me nothing (and) I have a beautiful kitchen."
With a quick glance toward the bar, she points out a customer.
"That guy put up all my trim," Knight says. "That's just the way this town is."
One of Duffy's regulars is 65-year-old retired teacher Joe Andolina of State College. Before being asked any questions about the restaurant, Andolina made his feelings known: "Thank God for Duffy's and thank God for Boalsburg."
"There are many, many regulars here, because Duffy's is that good, the service is that good," he says. "Jo is, for an afternoon, happy hour bartender, she is tremendous."
While a patron of the bar, Andolina didn't really try the restaurant until a colleague told him about the tavern's specials about 25 years ago.
"I used to stop here for a couple of beers after work and I never paid attention to things like (food) specials," Andolina says. "My friend Cathy said, 'Have you ever done half-price hamburgers at Duffy's on Monday?' I said, "What's half-price hamburgers? She said, 'They're the best buy in town. You can't feed your children for less at McDonald's, and you get their regular hamburgers.'
"We've been coming ever since."
Hacker considers his restaurant's food more about overall quality than any particular specialties.
"I'd say as far as our menu, I don't have one signature dish that someone will say, 'Hey, you have to go to Duffy's and have this,'" Hacker says. "I think what it is is that there's a comfort zone when people come in to Duffy's, that they won't be disappointed whether they're eating today or two months or three months from now."
Still, Duffy's has a popular seafood menu, with many items remaining a staple of the restaurant for decades.
"A lot of my recipes are the same as when we came in 38 years ago," Hacker says. "They haven't changed. The only thing that's changed is the people making them."
In fact, the menu has proven so popular in the area that someone once resorted to larceny to get the recipes for him or herself.
"I had a recipe book disappear out of here about 20 years ago," Hacker says. "Fortunately, there were enough of us here that had made everything that we could reconstruct it right away.
"To me, that was flattering. To have someone walk out of here with a recipe book ... I like that. When I see other restaurants in the area that have my recipes, but call them something else, it never bothers me. ... To me, that's a compliment, all the way."
Mirror Staff Writer Keith Frederick is at 946-7466.
